Seated near San Damiano, a bronze Francis looks out over the plain below Assisi.

Perhaps the most popular sculptured image of Francis of Assisi is that of the bearded
little man standing on a birdbath. This figure is so universal that you can find it as
readily in an Episcopalian’s backyard or a Buddhist prayer garden as at a Franciscan
retreat center.

To those who complain, “This birdbath art is too lowbrow and sentimental!” I
say, “Relax, it’s not always inferior art. Besides, Francis belongs to the
popular arts (e.g., key chains, fridge magnets and the like), as well as to the fine arts.”

To set Francis on a birdbath or in a flower garden or to depict him with birds circling
his head is simply a popular way of saying, “This man had a special link with all
God’s creatures, and it’s just like him to be standing there humbly among them.”

Francis was in awe of the swallow, the cricket and the wolf. “Where the modern cynic
sees something ‘buglike’ in everything that exists,” observed the German writer-philosopher
Max Scheler, “St. Francis saw even in a bug the sacredness of life.”

Another reason Francis should remain on the birdbath or in the garden is that his being
there helps us recognize, as Francis himself did, that the world of God and the world of
nature are one. Francis did not build an artificial wall between the natural world and
the supernatural, the secular and the sacred.For Francis, every creature was sacred. The world in which he lived was not something
evil to be rejected but a sacred ladder by which he could ascend to his Creator, as his
biographer St. Bonaventure noted more than once.

Francis would say that the birds coming to the birdbath are holy; water is holy. Why shouldn’t
Francis be there in the garden where he can be pelted by the rain or sleet, or kissed by “Brother
Sun”?

The bishops of the United States published a document in 1992 entitled Renewing the
Earth. In it the bishops praised St. Francis while reminding their readers: “Safeguarding
creation requires us to live responsibly in it, rather than managing creation as though
we are outside it.” We should see ourselves, they added, as stewards within creation,
not as separated from it. Francis was ahead of his time. He saw himself, like today’s
environmentalists, as part of the ecosystem, not as a proud master over and above it.

St. Francis of Assisi addressed creatures as “sisters” and “brothers,” that
is, as equals, not as subjects to be dominated. And that is why the humble figure of St.
Francis standing on the birdbath or among the shrubs is so right for our day. He truly
saw himself as a simple servant and caretaker of creation—little brother to the birds
and the fish and the lowly ivy.

Pope John Paul II proclaimed St. Francis of Assisi the patron of ecology in 1979. The
pope cited him for being “an example of genuine and deep respect for the integrity
of creation....
“St. Francis,” he added, “invited all creation—animals, plants,
natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon—
to give honor and praise to the Lord.”